“I am angry because it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the tools. We have the solutions. What we lack is the political will.” Guest column from Tyler Kelly of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort.

This column was also published at The Recombobulation Area, a weekly opinion column and online publication covering news and politics in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.

This is a guest column by Tyler Kelly of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort’s Educational Fund. Find more information about the organization’s efforts here.

I learned about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the most ordinary way — right after my fifth grade holiday band concert. I still remember the moment my music teacher, trying to shield us from the worst of it, gently described what had happened.

The only problem? It is impossible to sugarcoat a gunman walking into an elementary school and killing 20 students and six teachers.

Even during high school, when I would put on my Santa hat and pick up my trumpet for the annual holiday concert, I would remember that day — the shock, the confusion, the adults around me unable to make sense of the tragedy. There still are no words to describe kids being killed in school.

Now, more than a decade later, my shock has been replaced by something else: anger.

It is an outrage that our country has failed to protect its children. An entire generation has grown up since Sandy Hook, and shootings continue to devastate schools, families, and communities. This week, that devastation hit home in Wisconsin, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.

Once again, students and educators experienced the unimaginable. Once again, a community is left grieving, trying to comprehend their loss.

We can not accept this as normal.

We have become a nation that prepares kids for shooters instead of passing laws to stop them. We tell them to hide in closets, to run zig-zag patterns, to be brave. And year after year, politicians offer empty condolences instead of the action we so desperately need.

Let’s be clear: gun violence is preventable. Other states have proven this. Policies like universal background checks, safe storage requirements, and extreme risk laws save lives. States with strong gun laws have fewer gun deaths than states with weak gun laws. These are not radical ideas—they are basic, evidence-based measures that the vast majority of Americans and Wisconsinites support.

But here in Wisconsin, we have inexcusably weak gun laws. While other states take action, our legislature refuses to even bring life-saving bills to a vote, despite their overwhelming popularity.

I am angry because it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the tools. We have the solutions. What we lack is the political will.

When we look back at Sandy Hook, it’s tempting to think of it as a single, unimaginable tragedy. But it wasn’t the first, and it wasn’t the last. Every day we fail to act, another shooting becomes inevitable. Every day we accept guns as the number one killer of kids, we prioritize weapons over their safety. Every day we refuse stronger gun laws, we force more children to carry the weight of what they’ve seen and heard.

For me, that weight was remembering Sandy Hook after my fifth grade band concert. For today’s students, it’s another tragedy — a community forever scarred, a school forever changed. What will it take for us to say, “enough”?

There are so many thoughts and feelings in this moment — grief, anger, frustration — but surprise is not one of them. And that, in itself, is a moral failing. School shootings have become so normal in this country that we have stopped asking, “How could this happen?” and instead started asking “When will it happen again?”

This is not the way it has to be. Accepting this as normal is a choice, and it is one we can no longer make.

In less than three weeks, Wisconsin’s new legislative session begins. Passing stronger gun laws is the least we can do for our children. We owe them more than our thoughts and prayers. We owe them the chance to grow up safe and unafraid.

To the students, families, and staff at Abundant Life Christian School: we grieve with you. And to our legislators: the time for inaction is over.

If we refuse to act now, we are choosing to fail the next generation — just as we have failed this one.

Tyler Kelly is a Policy and Engagement Associate at the WAVE Educational Fund. He has diverse experience in the gun violence prevention movement, including work on policy, organizing, and communications. After the Parkland high school shooting, Tyler joined the gun violence prevention movement, leading Milwaukee’s chapter of March For Our Lives, and WAVE Educational Fund’s 2020 get out the vote initiatives. Tyler has also done work on electoral politics, political depolarization, and organized for a variety of other progressive causes.

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